'Bring in Tredwell's economical spin and give Hales an opening berth'
Monday 9 March 2015 06:36, UK
How should England go about getting a vital win over Bangladesh on Monday? Drop one of their most experienced seamers, reckons Bob Willis…
England must make two changes for Monday’s crunch game with Bangladesh, bringing in James Tredwell for Stuart Broad and Alex Hales for Gary Ballance.
Broad is haemorrhaging runs every time he bowls – not that the other seamers aren’t – and he hasn’t offered anything with the bat at all in this tournament so far, while, by his own admission, he is struggling to get over being hit on the head by Varun Aaron last summer.
Tredwell, meanwhile, is ready and waiting to come in and I really don’t know England have been so reticent to give their frontline spinner a go, considering he is just outside the top 20 in the ICC ODI bowling rankings.
Perhaps they thought they could muddle through with Moeen and Joe Root but Tredwell remains one of England’s best one-day bowlers and should have been in the side from the start.
Playing the frontline spinner will make England’s attack more economical but perhaps not more dangerous, as unless Chris Woakes and James Anderson manage to find some swing, something they haven’t done so far, wickets will still be hard to come by.
Captain Eoin Morgan hasn’t been helped too much by his bowlers so far but I would like to see him go back to using Moeen and Steven Finn in the middle overs after the first powerplay because that pairing was working quite well.
As for Hales, it looks like if he does earn a recall he will slot straight in at Ballance’s No 3 spot but I would give him full licence to thrill by opening the batting alongside Moeen.
England seem reluctant to shift Morgan and Jos Buttler up the order so they really need to encourage Moeen and Hales to go hell for leather at the start and tell them that is doesn’t matter if they get out as long as the run rate is better than a run-a-ball in the first 10 overs.
That won’t make it as consequential where Buttler comes in and won’t leave him with too much to do when he does get out in the middle, a fate he has suffered when Ian Bell and Ballance have poked it around in earlier matches.
Bangladesh are much better in batting than bowling so England should be able to score masses of runs, especially at the Adelaide Oval, a good batting track with short square boundaries.
Shakib Al Hasan is canny with the ball – he’s actually a top-class all-rounder and probably the only Bangladesh player who would get in anyone else’s side – but Mashrafe Mortaza was pretty disappointing against Scotland and there aren’t any other real threats in the bowling department.
England will definitely need to post a good total if they bat first, though, as in Tamim Iqbal, Mahmudullah, Mushfiqur Rahim and Shakib, Bangladesh have very competent batsmen.
And, sure, they would have preferred to play Bangladesh on a pitch with a bit more bounce in it but there has only been one World Cup game at Adelaide so - India v Pakistan - so the surface should be pretty good and I can’t see Morgan’s men slipping up here.
It is disappointing not to see Bangladesh make a better fist of games sometimes but many of their players are from impoverished backgrounds and once they have achieved international status and helped their families, they struggle to kick on.
That is the task facing them going forward, to get these players up to the next level and be more consistent in their performance, as well as to increase competition for places.
Watch England v Bangladesh, from 3am, Monday, Sky Sports World Cup (channel 403).
